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Project Aims to Develop New Welfare Standard for Fish Slaughter

"We see stress in particular in connection with what in technical terms is called crowding - storing the fish in high numbers in cages - and during the subsequent pumping. The fish do not like to get up in the free air," says project manager Bjorn Roth.

He is a researcher at Nofima and leads a research project in which the concept of sedation is essential.

"Sedation is about dulling down the fish before anesthesia, which decreaeses the response to the environment. Sedation will help to reduce stress levels in the salmon before slaughter," explains Mr Roth.

One method that seems to work well is the rapid cooling of live fish. This method allows the salmon to manually go into the battle machine without showing particular signs of stress," says Mr Roth.

The goal of this project is to develop a new welfare and quality standard for the treatment of salmon in connection with slaughter.